A dad is pleading to the British government to help him bring his six-month-old baby and wife home from Gaza after five of his relatives were killed in airstrikes.
Dalloul al-Neder, 31, is desperately trying to bring his surviving family members home after his mum, brother, pregnant sister-in-law and two nieces were killed in a rocket attack in Jabalia earlier this month.
He knows his wife, Rania, 19, and daughter, Mila, was pulled from the rubble but has had no more news since the blast on December 3.
The family were due to be reunited this year after Rania was granted a spousal visa, but mum and baby were left trapped after Israel launched their ground invasion following the deadly attack from Hamas.
‘It’s my dream to save them, and I am asking the British government to evacuate them before Christmas,’ Dalloul, from Manchester, said.
‘I will just keep fighting to bring them home. No one up to now has given me hope that we can evacuate them.
‘My little daughter was taken from the rubble with my wife. The rest of the family that I still have are all injured.’
Dalloul’s mum, Halima, 56, brother Mohammed, 36, his wife Hanin, 20, and two nieces, 12-year-old Remas and Ratig, nine, all died in the blast on December 3.
Want to be the first to hear the world’s top stories? Metro.co.uk is now on WhatsApp sending vital updates and top trending stories straight to your phone.
Join the Metro WhatsApp community now for breaking news, juicy showbiz stories and must-watch videos from across our website.
Simply click on this link and select ‘Join Chat’. Don’t forget to turn on notifications so you’ll always be the first to hear the latest!
Rania and Mila were injured, but Dalloul has not heard anything from since.
He said: ‘I feel broken. I still can’t believe these things happened so quickly, without seeing my mum, without anything, just suddenly in a second I lost my family.
‘They’ve been living in peace, sleeping in peace, not part of Hamas or any party.
‘All of them inside were civilians. But the Israeli missiles don’t differentiate between who you are. Hamas or not Hamas, you will be targeted.’
Dalloul came to Britain as an asylum seeker 2017 before starting up a takeaway business, Royal Grill House, in the Burnage area of Manchester two years ago.
‘On December 3 at around 5.30pm, I was working in my shop, and my brother-in-law messaged me on WhatsApp,’ Dalloul said.
‘He said “Your niece has been martyred, but the rest of your family are ok”.
‘But in that moment, I knew there must have been more than one person who had been martyred because the Israeli missiles don’t kill one or two people, they kill whole families.
‘Later, I found the news that five members of my family had been lost, including my mum and my brother, her wife and my two nieces.’
Dalloul said he’d been in touch with his mum before the sudden attack, where she had told him to prepare for her possible death.
He added: ‘My mum, the last time I spoke to her, she said, “Listen, my son, in any second, you will receive bad news about us, so just be patient”.
‘She filmed a short video sending her love for me and my brother and that actually happened. I lost her. She and my family did everything for me.’
He has heard from a doctor at a hospital his wife and daughter are not critically injured.
He said the other 15 members of his family, who were hurt in the attack, were still struggling to find suitable hospital treatment.
He added: ‘They are desperate for me. There was not enough food for my daughter since about 55 days ago. She lost about 4kg due to the lack of food that she needed and she needs special milk.
‘I have two nephews, and their legs are still broken. But we couldn’t find an x-ray device in the whole of the Gaza area.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
